


White Moon, White Moon

by rabbit_habits



Category: The White Stripes
Genre: Gen, under the great white northern lights, white moon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-24
Updated: 2012-06-24
Packaged: 2017-11-08 10:32:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 559
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/442249
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rabbit_habits/pseuds/rabbit_habits
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Based on the last scene of Under the Great White Northern Lights.</p>
            </blockquote>





	White Moon, White Moon

She can feel him circling in the dark, waltzing with his guitar the way he'll waltz with her at the end of the concert. Not for the first time, she wonders if he thinks of her as just another instrument to play; when they were married she sometimes thought that if his guitar had had a hole in it, he would've happily fucked it instead of her. Though there are times when they play when she thinks he's practically fucking her _through_ his guitar. But not now. Now he's just waltzing in the dark, circles, figure-eights, a wayward moon orbiting her.

It's usually the other way around -- she's the silent moon that follows him, though locked in a fixed orbit. When he plays "White Moon" on the piano, everything bubbles over and she tries not to cry, she tries to hide her face behind her hair, tries to smile. He doesn't notice. He's always telling her to talk louder, fake-scolding her -- how else will she make her voice heard and be noticed? -- but now, when she's about to cry, he just keeps playing, and she wants to scream, "Notice me! I'm making noise now. Notice me!" But she doesn't and just sags away from him, then is drawn back, always like a moon being tugged by the gravitational pull of something larger than herself. The tears slide down her cheeks, snot threatening to roll over her upper lip, and she watches him play yet another instrument, devoting all of his attention to it the way he always does.

"My own double feature," he sings, and she knows that he means her, and she remembers some PBS documentary they watched once when they were stoned out of their minds, about planets and moons that are tidally locked to each other and whirl through space, spinning around and around together, but always facing one another.

He turns toward her when he sings, "aloof", and then again, quick ADD dashes of looks, and she never meets his eyes, though as soon as his profile is facing her again, she fixes her gaze on him, on the tangle of black hair, the little white point of his nose. Her face is wet, and she turns it toward him, mouthing the words that he's singing. But he's performing now, the glances he gives her are just motions. 

When the song is over, he collapses back into himself, star to white dwarf, and sits slouching, staring at nothing. He's noticed, but he's waiting for her to make him pay attention, to give him something the way all his other instruments do. She makes a noise, a sniff, something, and he seems to wake up, smiling like he's expected this, and she smiles too, like it's a game, like they're pulling each other's tides. He wraps his arm around her shoulders, an awkward, brotherly gesture, but then his face is in her hair, his arm is curled around her head, and she's not moving or swaying anymore. She rests her hand on his wrist, his head is tucked behind hers, behind her hair. "Be the star of the show," he'd sung, but she'd never been able to around him, never wanted to be the star of any show but his. And now, for a moment, she occults him, blotting him out for a moment to shine.


End file.
